


A Cave by the Sea and an Odour of Rot

by BID



Series: Original - Nor&Tic [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: (off screen), Angst, Blood, Demons, Gen, Ghosts, Gore, Infant Death, M/M, Sad, Supernatural Elements, Verse: Canon, demon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-06-09 19:34:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6920236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BID/pseuds/BID
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nor, a ghost, has been gone for a few days, and this is a short story about how his demon boyfriend Tic found him.</p><p>[Short summaries on characters and verse inside.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Cave by the Sea and an Odour of Rot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VeeChaos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeeChaos/gifts).



> [LINK](http://bid-art.tumblr.com/ocs) to the short summaries. Reading "The world", "Nor Covet", "Tom Tick Tock" and "Neither" should give you all the context necessary.  
> This world has been created by [sarcasticChaos](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sarcasticChaos/pseuds/sarcasticChaos) and myself, the character "Tom Tick Tock" belongs to her.  
> She also beta read this, although not the most recent edit.  
>   
>  **Super abridged version of the summaries here.**  
>  **The World:** Everything is basically the same as here, the real world. The population as a whole is either unaware or doubtful of ‘supernatural beings’ while others firmly believe in religions, cults, etc. There is a seconary plane of existence populated by the ghosts of anythign that used to be alive, which wander the plane until they run out of energy and dissolve, or extend their existence by eating other ghosts. The ghosts of human who have made deals with demons are most likely to turn demonic themselves.
> 
>  **Nor Covet:** Is a ghost who had been involved in a demonic deal (as a good, the first born son), hence has gained with rising power some demonic attributes (the power to manipulate ‘motivation’ (love, hate, fear, mastery, autonomy, greed, lust, hunger, addiction, obsession, curiosity, habit, etc) and in turn lost most of his own), but is at the core still a ghost, not a demon (he can't be summoned the way a demon can for example). He is cyclopic (birth defect, he was stillborn), fond of children, at the time of this oneshot in a relationship with Tic (Tom Tick Tock).  
> 
>
>> Neither: At some point Nor's core of being got corruptet and he turned into a slightly different looking, more hungry, aggressive, erratic and irritable version of himself, whom insisted their name is not Nor (hence the name Neither). Tic stayed with him during that time and tried to find a way to fix him.
> 
> **Tom Tick Tock:** Also called **Tic** was an alchemist back in 1400, but due to a series of incidents that included deals with demons and other drama Tic died at age 28, but immediately came back as a demon of time.  
>  His power can manifest as glowing golden sand, and comes with a host of restrictions regarding timetravel, reading the timeline of things he touches, etc. Tic spends the vast majority of his time on the living plane, and still holds firmly onto the customs of being a human. 

It takes Tic a while, three days to be more exact, before he finds Nor.

This did not include the week it took Tic to realise that the short ghost wasn't showing up in his usual intervals, irregular visits of varying lengths yet still predictable in some fashion. 

Sometimes Nor would show up, ask, say or take seemingly inconsequential things and vanish again, leaving a slowly dissolving puddle of clear pink goop behind. Other times Nor would practically move in, staying for weeks at a time.

It was like he had phases where he couldn't make himself stay. Perhaps it had to do with the lack of strong motivations in the forest that surrounded Tic’s house, perhaps it had to do with growing up alone for so long.

Those short visits usually happened every two or three days, stretched over maybe a fortnight, before he'd stay for weeks on end, and only after that Nor would remove himself for more than just a few days time.

Tic liked those times that the ghost stayed, he'd be lying if he said he didn't, and he's just too old to lie to himself anymore. So instead he allows himself to bask in Nor's presence and affections, indulges in sleep more often just to enjoy waking up with limbs wrapped around him and long fingers in his hair scratching at his scalp, to be comforted by the blandness of his bodies timeline when Tic’d accidentally read him while lying skin to skin.

So, yes. It had been over a week that he saw his friend, and before that he had only received short visits, leaving an ungood feeling in the pit of his stomach as Tic convinced himself to go and search.

Normally it was easy to find Nor, or to be precise, normally it was easy for Nor to find him. The thought of wanting the ghost around usually enough to make him appear, "It's like someone's tugging on your shirt," he once explained.

But this time Nor hadn't shown up, hadn't reacted to Tic's motivations for days.

So of course Tic is worried, and proceeds to be worried when he finds him, or thinks he's found him, in a cave by the sea somewhere in the Normandy.

There is an odour of rot hanging in the air that even the draft from the ocean and the smell of salt and fish can't cover. He doesn't see him yet, can't in the darkness that seems to swallow all light from the cave entrance within only a few meters, but the alchemistic compass he has created to find Nor definitely points at the cave.

He really wants to turn around.

A bundle of half dried seaweed squelches under his boot when Tic reluctantly steps forward, tugging off a glove to light his way with the golden, glowing sand of his power, keeping the fingertips of his gloved hand touching the low ceiling.

If he had the time (and isn't that ironic) Tic would turn back and find a torch, fire or electric he doesn't even care. And the idea is tempting, he really wants to go and get it, his sand isn't that bright, right? 

But this cave is much too close to the ocean, waves no doubt spilling into the stone opening during the flood, leaving small puddles and algae behind with the change of tides. He knows of Nor's fear of the ocean, so there must be something stopping the ghost from leaving and he'll be damned if he lets Nor be trapped a second longer.

The first thing Tic sees, aside from rock and water, as he carefully steps around a bend within the cave, is a head. Lying on the floor in a pool of old congealed blood, missing most of it's lower jaw and a slash of familiar claw marks running over it's bloated rotting face.

Curiously it’s eyes are milky and untouched by animals, and Tic can suddenly feel why.  
Only now noticing the familiar, artificial feeling of really not wanting to be there. There is no doubt that this was Nor's doing and he hopes that the ghost isn't paying too much attention to this 'go away' type of bubble.

He is just glad that he knows it’s Nors doing, which usually makes it easier to just force yourself against the demotivation.

As Tic moves on he passes more viscera illuminated in the faint glow of his golden sand flowing along the cave walls and floor, the stench making his eye water. 

When he finds Nor it seems to be, to no one's surprise, at the center of the massacre. Sitting on the ground heedless of the bone shards, flesh and blood as his knees are pulled to his chest, arms tightly wrapped around himself.

"Nor?", Tic calls, stepping closer and pointedly ignoring the squelching crunch under his heel. All his attention drawn to the ghost a few meters in front of him, and he can feel his breath stuttering when he sees clear, green slime drip from Nor’s head to his shoulders. The same way it did when he had been 'Neither'. The idea of seeing Nor in that kind of a state again, broken and warped, sends cold panic up his spine and down his gut.

It were the words, "She was so small." quietly murmured that washed away Tic's fear, not entirely, but then Neither had never sounded so small.

"Who?" he asks, now standing behind a silent Nor and glancing over his shoulder, only realising what the small bundle of dark stained cloth contains once he places his bare hand on the ghost's shoulder. Reading the memories from Nor's body of being created with the ghost’s congealed energy, how he found a dead baby at his feet and seven figures in robes surrounding a 'summoning circle' that did not match up with anything summonable (not even Nor's fake circle). He could practically feel the blood washing over skin and teeth crushing bones, claws ripping sinews like cheap yarn.

Tic realised how lucky he was to have Nor on his side, how lucky this plane was that Nor did not have the will to rampage and kill. He did not know how much of the carnage had been deliberate and how much had been a mindless reaction, but Tic could tell that Nor had taken his sweet time.

"Do you want to bury her in the yard?"

Slowly Nor nods, and lets himself be pulled onto his feet (and into the air) by Tic, but wordlessly insisting that he carry the small corpse himself. 

As Nor picks up the bundle, a wave of disgust roils in Tic's stomach together with the smell, only now realising that Nor himself is still covered in the days old gore. Of course he is, otherwise Tic wouldn't have been able to read his body’s memories, and it's not like Nor would wash in the ocean.

He pulls Nor out of the cave by his tacky, ice cold hand, realising that the air must have been too wet for the blood to dry properly. No wonder it had smelled so bad.

"Come on then, let's go home."

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to leave comments, ask questions etc!
> 
> The link in the note will provide you with brief information (still much more elaborate than the abridged version), and also link you to art relating to the characters (the name above their picture is a link to tags).


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